President Xi Jinping was re-elected to be the president of the People’s Republic of China until 2028 on Friday morning (local Chinese time). Unanimously, the almost 3,000 deputies of the 14th National People’s Assembly (ANP) decided to give continuity to the president’s government in the Great Hall of the People, in downtown Beijing.
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The election had been projected since October last year when Xi Jinping was re-elected for the second time as general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the ruling party of the Asian giant. The Head of State will also continue to be the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, an unprecedented fact that makes him the most powerful leader since founding Chairman Mao Zedong.
At 8 in the morning, the Army band began to play in the compound, while the details of the session that began an hour later were finalized. Some local and foreign media, including EL TIEMPO, can enter the private session. During the votes of the deputies, the journalists were taken to an annexed place. Minutes later, they returned to the second floor of the central auditorium, where the press area was determined, to find out the results of the deliberations.
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Xi Jinping was first elected in 2013 by the Assembly at the time. Five years later, the new legislative body re-elected him and also discovered an amendment to the national constitution that removed the maximum limit of ten years that a president had to govern. That fact allowed the president today to secure a third presidential term.
Clean Such has been the backing of the legislature and the CCP that «Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era» — as its ideals and goals have been called — was included in the party’s constitution with his name, something that had not happened with his predecessors.
His second re-election occurs in the midst of a different context, with open tensions with the United States and the West, and in the midst of an economic recovery due to the change in measures due to the covid-19 pandemic.
David Alejandro Lopez Bermudez
Beijing (China)
TIME
In networks: @lopez03david